


Hear Me

by nuandia



Series: Let me stay here with you [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Funeral, Gen, Grieving, Not Beta Read, Swearing, but somewhat hopeful if you squint, still no really happy ending, we die like sunset curve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29492037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuandia/pseuds/nuandia
Summary: Alex is looking down at himself in the coffin, his body wearing a black suit. His cheeks look wrong somehow. He’s never seen himself so still, its like a puppet in front of him, except that’s his real flesh body. It’s going into the ground and he’s still here, still in his own shape, but also not here.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: Let me stay here with you [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140713
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	Hear Me

**Author's Note:**

> Just an fyi, this might probably not make much sense if you haven't read part one of my series. But ... you're welcome to read anyway and just tell me what you thought.
> 
> Also I have no idea how to ... if this really works as a series, I just made it one. So ... have fun I guess :) 
> 
> Oh gosh this is just a trainwreck ... I'll just be hiding in the bushes.

His funeral is a solemn affair. It’s never something he would have to witness. When people talked about their death it was usually more about what they would leave behind and how old they would be, what they accomplished in life.

Apparently Alex has time to contemplate these questions while being at his funeral.

It’s pretty fucked up.

Alex is looking down at himself in the coffin, his body wearing a black suit. His cheeks look wrong somehow. He’s never seen himself so still, its like a puppet in front of him, except that’s his real flesh body. It’s going into the ground and he’s still here, still in his own shape, but also not here.

He’s going to have another anxiety attack if he keeps on thinking about it. And isn’t that just a slap in his face, even in death he’s not freed from his anxious ticks and attacks only now there’s nobody to calm him down because everybody who knew how is still alive.

His mother is openly weeping, clasping pictures of him in various stages of his childhood. His eyes keep flickering towards her. She looks impeccable, aside from her ruined eye make-up. Her blonde hair braided over her shoulder, a hat snug on her head with a dark grey veil, her lips bright red, the only colourful spot.

His father is standing next to her, his hand on her shoulder, a grim look on his face, his jaw tense, but no tears. Alex is not surprised.

Do they really mourn him?

Or the son he could have been, had he not been queer. ‘Had he not let himself be tainted by the rock band he decided to join’. ‘Had he spent more time finding a girlfriend and less time with boys’. ‘Had he not been unnatural’.

Alex turns towards his body again. Instead of his golden chain, there’s a silver cross around his neck. Alex wants to rip it off his body, but his fingers go through his throat when he tries to grab it. He’s not tangible anymore.

He’s not sure what changed, he remembers in the early stages of being dead carrying glasses, tucking Luke in, helping Reggie drink, feeling the rough wood of the bench …

Now he feels nothing. He’s floating along, weak and intangible.

He’s nothing.

The service slowly fills. Mostly his parents’ friends, offering their condolences. _Alex was such a light. Such a handsome boy. He would have made beautiful babies._ None of them know the secrets behind their doors. His mother always prided herself with presenting him as the perfect young man. She put even more effort into it after he came out to them and the strict but warm household turned cold.

Alex shakes his head and walks along the chairs. He’s not even sure why he is here. Maybe because he couldn’t bear watching Reggie and Luke anymore. He’s seen Bobby too. He’d looked gut-wrenched when Emily told him when he tried to visit them. Bobby thought all of them had survived, it’s what he was told when he asked for information about the band. Bobby had always kept his cool, but for the first time he looked absolutely destroyed, flopping down on the ground, eyes far away. He’d let himself be guided to a chair, staring at the ground and unresponsive. Bobby’d checked on Reggie and Luke and then left. He didn’t visit them in the hospital again.

Whereas Bobby seemed to protect himself with a complete absence of emotion, going through the motions without doing anything really, Luke and Reggie were anything but. Reggie kept waking up at night, nightmares ripping him from restful sleep all alone in his room. His parents try to keep their fighting hidden. They scream at each other with hushed voices, but it doesn’t change much. The hostility is still there, Reggie sees it too. Not so much in words but in sharp gestures, in venomous looks and hissed comments. His mother tries to pay more attention to him at least.

Luke starts crying fits all of a sudden. He’s fine one moment and then he starts bawling, the grip around his guitar so hard his knuckles turn white.

He’s thrashed one of his acoustic guitars against his wall, screaming even when Mitch wrapped his arms around his son from behind, pulling him against his chest with Luke still wailing and crying.

It’s too much. It’s a lake full of hurt and pain wherever Alex looks. He’s drowning in it and he can’t help. The first few times he tried talking to each of them, but neither reacts. Their eyes go through him, focusing on something behind him. There’s no place for him anymore.

His parents are a break. They mourn him, but they didn’t bother to get to know the whole him.

They don’t mourn _him_.

The door opens again and Reggie comes in. His mother is with him, a hand on his shoulder. He looks uncomfortable but also grateful at the support she’s giving him.

She’s trying at least. Alex’s glad about that.

Reggie inhales deeply and exhales. The rhythm is familiar in which his chest rises and falls and then it clicks. It’s the same rhythm Alex used to calm himself down from an anxiety attack. The same rhythm Luke and Alex used to tell him to breathe in, hold and out. The thought that Reggie needs to use it breaks something in Alex. He shouldn’t have to need it.

Reggie walks in farther, his steps hesitating as he heads for the coffin. A soft sound rips out from his throat, when he sees him lying there, not loud enough to call attention to him.

Reggie’s saying something to him, but Alex is too far away to actually hear what he says. He can’t bear to hear him. The last few days have drained so much energy from him, all the misery he’s caused is coming up to him, ripping at the few strings inside of him that still feel like Alex Mercer.

His parents haven’t seen Reggie yet, too occupied by their friends. Alex is glad, they never really liked Reggie. It started with the fact that his parents didn’t go to church and ends somewhere about his leather jacket and ripped jeans.

Silent tears are falling down Reggie’s face and he scrubs his face clean with a pink rag. “I thought-”, he mumbles. Alex has ventured closer again, because … because it’s Reggie and he’s crying.

“I thought you were alive. You said you were okay. You said so”, he accuses him. His mother hangs her head. The doctor had calmed the Peters and Pattersons down, when both boys insisted they had talked to Alex. Stress, they said. Hallucinations. Alex was never there. Their brains trying to cope with the loss of their best friend.

Luke had swallowed the words roughly, staring at his fists. Reggie kept shaking his head, mumbling to himself about lunch.

Alex feels guilty, but he can’t say he regrets telling them. He needed them to rest, to get better. He needed them to look at him like they always do, he needed them to _see_ him in a way only they can, because they know everything about him and love him not despite but because of it.

“I’m sorry”, he says. Reggie stiffens, a hand curling around the coffin.

When Luke opens the door Emily and Mitch are both with him. One of them always touching him, grounding him. When Luke looks up and sees Reggie at the coffin he flinches, hard. Alex frowns, because that’s not right. He’s not supposed to flinch seeing Reg. He’s not-

Luke keeps walking, his head down. He’s wearing a black suit, his hair actually combed down to the side and Alex wants to laugh at the absurdity because he looks ridiculous. That’s not Luke.

He stops next to Reggie. There’s at least a foot of space between them. Luke flinches again when he sees Alex’s body, still and made pretty.

“He’s not wearing his necklace”, Luke murmurs.

“I noticed”, Reggie agrees stiffly.

Everything in Alex screams. This is wrong. This is- they are wrong.

They look up at the same time, their heads turning towards Alex’s parents. His father notices them first, the hand around his mother’s shoulder tightening. She looks up. Her eyes widen when she sees the boys and then turn to slits. She raises herself from the chair and walks towards them, the clicking of her heels loud in the sudden silence surrounding them.

His parent’s friends have gone silent, already smelling a spectacle. That’s why they’re here, isn’t it? Not to miss anything.

“How dare you-”, she starts, pointing her finger first towards Reggie, then Luke, “-turn up here at my son’s funeral when this is your fault!”

Alex sees Emily and Mitch’s faces darken. Reggie’s mother looks taken aback.

“We’re his friends”, Luke defends them immediately and Alex is glad for the ‘we’ instead of an ‘I’.

“You’re nothing but the vermin that corrupted my son”, she spits, completely ignoring Luke. Alex laughs dryly. Of course, blame Luke and Reggie who’d been there for Alex whenever he needed them. During the good and the bad. Who reminded him that he was loved. Who told him that he was special. Who made him feel normal when Alex hated himself.

“Melinda!”, Emily hisses, tucking Luke slightly behind her. Her voice is firm, but lower, contrasting the shrill tone of his mother. “Everyone is here to mourn Alex.”

His mother laughs cruelly, tears leaking out of her eyes. “That wouldn’t have been necessary if it weren’t for your children. I would still have Alex if it weren’t for you.”

Reggie’s turning in on himself, trying to make himself smaller. Mrs. Peters pulls her son against her body. Luke’s eyes in contrast are blazing, he’s crying again, tears running down his cheeks, but his eyebrows are pulled together, staring at Alex’s mother, not giving an inch. Emily and Luke are so similar, it’s a miracle they don’t see that themselves.

“You didn’t have Alex. You didn’t even accept him. He’s-”, he stops, swallows. Mitch squeezes his shoulder. “He showed you exactly who he was and you decided to ignore him. If anything you drove him away, don’t blame us for your mistakes. We-”, he inhales raggedly and exhales. “We know exactly what we did.”

This time, it doesn’t feel right. Luke’s not talking about what he and Reggie did. He means himself. He knows exactly what he did, suggesting to eat the street dogs and thus sealing Alex’s death. Almost killing himself and Reggie in the process.

His mother stares at Luke, lips pressed together. Then in a more composed tone she says, not to Luke, but Alex’s father, “I want them gone.”

Reggie jerks up, shaking his head. “No!”, he yelps, eyes wide and pleading. “Just- we won’t say anything, please!” His voice is pure desperation and cracking.

Luke looks from Reggie to Alex’s mother. The fight has left him and he’s leaning against Mitch for support.

Alex is staring at his mother. She can’t mean that. The only people he wants to have at his funeral service and she’s throwing them out?

His father comes towards the crowd, that has formed around them, all of his parents’ friends staring in entertainment. Alex’s father stops next to his wife, tall as ever, his eyes that resemble Alex’s so much staring down at them in disgust. Reggie flinches under his scrutiny. “You heard what my wife said. Leave!”

Reggie gapes, his lower lip quivering.

“Richard”, Mitch starts, but his father shakes his head.

“Alex would have wanted them here”, Emily argues. Alex is thankful for that. She’s right. He wants them both here. He needs them here.

“Our mind is made up”, Alex’s father says, pointing to the door. “Don’t make my son’s funeral more of a spectacle than it already is.”

Alex is shaking. He’s angry, he’s furious. He looks at the dejected faces of Reggie and Luke, at their slumped frames. He’s not letting them leave. He’s-

“Don’t”, he whispers towards the boys. Reggie keeps staring right at Alex’s parents. Luke looks towards his mother, but he senses that they’ve lost the fight.

“Come on, honey”, she whispers and Luke takes one last look at Alex’s body, before he turns around.

“Don’t go!”, Alex repeats, walking next to them, back towards the entrance. From the corner of his eye he sees Bobby sitting on a chair, completely absent from the whole ordeal, staring towards his coffin.

Alex rushes towards the door, gripping the handles and keeping it closed. When Luke’s pushing the door open, it doesn’t budge. “It’s jammed”, he whispers, voice broken. Mitch nods, letting Emily take over and pushes against the door. It stays close.

Alex is breathless, but he’s grinning.

“This is ridiculous”, Alex hears his father call out, the heavy stomps of his feet coming closer. “Don’t think I won’t call the police, just because you don’t want to leave”, he says, pushing against the door. Alex holds on tighter, concentrating, focusing all the last pieces of energy he has into keeping the door shut.

His father actually looks stunned. He pushes again and again, but the door stays closed.

“What have you done?”, he hisses, his whole body language hostile, like he was when Alex told him he didn’t want to try out for the football team. Like he was when he said he didn’t want to go out with Minnie McKenna. Like he was when he told them he wasn’t interested in girls at all.

“Nothing”, Mitch says.

Reggie looks up in space towards nothing.

“’s Alex”, he mumbles. Alex freezes, staring at Reggie, for the first time in days a small smile stretches on the boy’s lips. That’s all it takes to stop his concentration. His hands slip through the door and when his father pushes against the doors this time he trips and falls on the stairs, ripping his suit trousers.

Alex actually snorts.

His father curses at himself, curses at the door and then makes sure that all five people leave his service, dabbing a white piece of cloth against the trail of blood on his knee.

“That was Alex”, Reggie mumbles, a spark in his eyes. Luke looks at him, eyes tired.

“It wasn’t”, he says. Now it’s Reggie’s time to flinch, he steps away from him. “Alex is dead. It was just a lucky accident.”

Their parents are standing a few feet away, letting their sons talk to each other.

Reggie shakes his head, whispering. “I’ve seen him. You’ve seen him. Come on, he brought us water!”

Alex doesn’t know what to say. Reggie has always been easily persuaded to believe in the supernatural. The thought that he still hangs on to the few and fleeting memories before they realised he was dead makes something spark in his chest.

“There weren’t any glasses when we woke up. It was a dream, Reg.”

“No, I talked to him. Later, when you were still sleeping and I had lunch he was there, I couldn’t touch him, but-”

“Stop. Reggie, please stop”, Luke looks up at him, pleading and tired. Reggie swallows. He opens his mouth and closes it again.

“I heard him today”, Reggie says after a long beat, voice timid. “He apologised.”

Alex stops in his tracks. Thinking back to a few minutes ago. He’s right, he said he was sorry just before Luke came in. He apologised for telling him he was okay. Is he-

He thought – he thought they couldn’t hear him anymore.

Alex clears his throat awkwardly. Can he say something? Should he say something? He stays silent, because Luke is looking at Reggie like he betrayed him somehow. His eyes closing and opening again, a guarded expression he hasn’t had in his eyes since he was seven and Reggie accidentally crushed his favourite toy. The look only eased once Reggie kept apologising and informing them at lunch that he would save his money to buy Luke that toy, deciding to forego the chocolate pudding that day, which both he and Luke knew was what he was looking for all week. Luke had insisted on Reggie buying lunch, telling him that his father agreed to buy it again if he behaved at school.

Now that look is back, aimed straight at Reggie. There’s a sound coming from his mouth Alex can’t quite discern.

“Maybe you should take the appointments”, he says quietly. Reggie steps back, sudden and violently, as if Luke had punched him.

“I’m not- I don’t need therapy”, he says, voice weak and pleading.

“If you say so, Reg”, Luke mumbles, turning back towards his parents. They put him between them and say goodbye to Reggie and Mrs. Peters.

Reggie stays back, a new rush of tears spilling down his cheeks. He crashes against his mother, when she comes to him, wrapping him in her arms. They stay like that for a few minutes until Reggie calmed down enough for them to start walking, his head turned downwards.

Alex stays, watching the broken pieces he left behind turn harsher and sharper.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. After I wrote the first part I somehow couldn't leave it alone I guess? Like words kept flooding my mind and it just took on a world on its own. 
> 
> Not a native speaker but giving her best. 
> 
> Give me a shout on tumblr if you're bored or anything. You can find me here: https://nuandia.tumblr.com/


End file.
